This Bitter Earth
by ArentYouSophiaLoren-8887
Summary: This is the story of a boy who became a ghost. Alternatively - Campbell Saunders is forgotten, except to those who can't forget. The ones who are still haunted.


**Author's Note: The idea & structure for this came from a Star Wars fic titled "Those Immortal Dead" by notbecauseofvictories. If you are a fan of Padme Amidala or just a Star Wars fan in general, this story is an absolute must-read. In fact, I'd suggest you go read it right now, before you read this one. Go ahead. I'll wait. **

**I wrote this story because I loved how the original fic looked at time and memory and how ripples are created through history. Which got me thinking about Cam, and how no one ever talks about him or even says his name. As early as the episodes right after his death, the school seemed intent on erasing him and moving on (see: not wanting him in the Degrassi video yearbook). They treat Cam's suicide like he's Voldemort – speaking the name of someone who had done something so terrible was taboo, because suicide itself is such a taboo. And instead of everyone trying to break the stigma around it, they just omit it entirely from their vocabulary. But just because they don't speak of it doesn't mean it didn't happen, or that it didn't affect the lives of the people who knew him.**

 **I don't own Degrassi.**

 **oooOOOooo**

 _This is the story of a boy who became a ghost._

 **oooOOOooo**

The question gets asked every few months, usually at PTA meetings:

" _When are they going to tear down that old greenhouse?"_

The Degrassi greenhouse has been falling apart for a while, ever since that massive storm hit and a tree crashed through the ceiling. Once Simpson hired a tow truck to haul away the debris, the whole area was a mess of branches and broken glass. With every construction crew in the city working to fix the damage caused by the storm, there was no choice left except to board up the whole mess until it could be repaired.

It's been abandoned ever since.

It's an eyesore, and definitely a safety hazard, but people can eventually get used to anything. The school allows the weeds choke the carefully-planted seeds while they build a new computer lab, purchase more SmartBoards, and buys new uniforms for the lacrosse team. Simpson makes the area "absolutely off-limits" and threatens expulsion to anyone who wants to mess around in the shabby old hut.

Eventually, the school forgets about the greenhouse. Even though it's in plain sight, it might as well be invisible. Students come and go, people graduate and move on while new ones walk the hallways, and with each new class that comes through, the forgetting continues.

Occasionally, someone will look at the old shack, and it will be as if they are seeing for the very first time. Perhaps they are. It's almost like learning a secret, except it's not exactly a secret when it's right there in plain sight.

Just unacknowledged.

In those moments, someone will wonder: Who decided to lock the place up and pretend it never existed, instead of trying to fix the problem? Most people, though, don't even think to ask.

It's just a greenhouse. There's no name or history attached to it, no story people tell. It's just there, an abandoned husk of wood and glass, made invisible by time.

 **i.**

Sometimes, Hunter catches Madame Janeau looking at him.

Not in a creepy-pervert way, or anything like that. Hunter doesn't know how to describe the way his French teacher sometimes looks at him, dark eyes narrowed and her lips pursed, face drawn into a not-quite-scowl of concentration. It almost reminds him of looking at a math problem he can't solve.

"Hunter Hollingsworth, please see me after class."

He slouches up to her desk with that scowl, fidgeting because she'd called his name right as the bell rang and everyone else is heading to next period.

"Is everything all right with you, Hunter?" she asks, which causes his eyebrows to shoot up in surprise. "You've seemed a bit…distracted, in class lately. Is there something going on?"

He gapes at her a moment longer, then adjusts the straps of his backpack on his thin shoulders.

"Fine," he says. "Nothing's going on."

Madame Janeau's mouth twists. "Are you sure? You just haven't seemed like yourself lately."

He doesn't know what she means, but he doesn't care right now, because he's late for class and Perino will give him detention if he walks in without a pass after the bell has rung, so he blows her off and asks for a hall pass and disappears as the stragglers for her next period class find their seats.

He never asks her what her problem is, and at the end of the semester he's moved into French II with a different teacher. One who doesn't flick her eyes over Hunter, probing him like she's waiting for some sort of answer.

The next year starts with a new class of freshman in Madame Janeau's class, and soon she only sees Hunter Hollingsworth in the hallways, or when it's her turn to be the cafeteria monitor during lunch. Whenever she does, it's always in his signature all-black clothing, shoulders angrily slumped as he stalks the halls with greasy hair, his mouth yanked into the default hard scowl.

She hears the gossip in the teacher's lounge: in-patient psychiatric care, local hospital, undetermined amount of time. He is confirmed to have been harassing and threatening another student on social media. He may or may not have brought a loaded weapon to a school function.

When she goes to her car that afternoon, her hands are shaking so badly she can't unlock the door. When she finally scrambles inside, she sits behind the wheel with her head in her hands.

The tears come, fast and thick, blurring her vision. Whether she's crying from relief or failure, it's impossible to say.

 **ii.**

Lola shivers when Tiny presses her up against the locker.

"What?" He smiles into her neck. "What is it?"

"What if a chaperone comes?"

"They're not gonna come all the way down here."

"How do you know?"

Tiny grunts impatiently. "If you don't want to do this, we can go back to the dance."

Lola shakes her head.

"No, it's not that…" Her voice trails off.

"What?"

Lola bites her lip. Her eyes dart like she's expecting some dude in a white sheep to pop out and scream boo

"This hallway always gives me the creeps."

Tiny raises his eyebrows.

"People died here!" Lola scowled at him. "At this school! That's not made up; it really happened."

"So?"

"So…Shay's locker used to belong to one of the dead kids."

Tiny rolls his eyes. "Ooooh, haunted lockers."

"It opens and closes on its own! Even when it's locked, it opens itself! And I get this weird feeling in my stomach whenever I walk past it –"

"That's probably from the smell of the boy's washroom."

He reaches to snag his arm around her waist.

"You realize that there is no chance a ghost is haunting the Grace 10 lockers, right?"

When Lola still looks doubtful, he leans in closer, grazing his teeth against her neck.

"Trust me," he murmurs, enjoying the shiver of her skin on his lips. "There aren't any ghosts here."

 **iii.**

"It wasn't about you; not really."

Miles wanted to know what it is about, if not him. But he was high and couldn't hold the thought together, and Maya didn't elaborate.

Later, after he's fucked up both his car and his relationship with Maya, the question will be forgotten, and he will never know.

 **iv.**

It was Zig's idea to cut class.

Grace protested that they had to at least pretend to be responsible, but Tiny chimed in that as seniors, it was practically their duty to cut class and slack off. Besides, all they were missing was history, and who cared about a bunch of dead white guys, anyway.

"We should, if we ever want to stop the world from making the same mistakes over and over again," she argues, but they either didn't hear her or pretended not to.

Ten minutes later, sitting on the roof using her jacket as a cushion, Grace has to admit that the guys had a point. It's the first truly warm day of spring, the kind that makes you think summer really is right around the corner after the colorless drain of winter. She's happy to tip her head back into the pale sunshine, letting the warm breeze drift across her face.

On one side, Tiny is lying on his back, arms covering his eyes to block out the sun.

"Zig, man," he murmurs, "this was the right idea."

On her other side, Zig cracks one eye open. "When am I ever wrong?"

Grace and Tiny don't bother dignifying that with a response.

"You think they'd keep the roof locked," Tiny comments. "Or else half the school would be up here all the time."

"Guess they trust us not to jump," Zig replies.

Tiny snorts. "A school full of teenagers, and you trust everyone to not go psycho and off themselves?

Grace whacks him across the stomach. "Don't be such an asshole."

Tiny frowns. "I'm just saying –"

She smacks him again. "That's not funny."

Tiny grumbles under his breath, lying back down on the cement. Out the corner of her eye, Grace can see Zig staring at the sky. His eyes are suddenly blank.

"Hey." She taps him on the arm, and he jumps like he's been stung. "Did you go to Mars or something?"

Zig blinks for a moment, as if trying to place her. Then he shudders, and something like normal creeps back into his eyes.

"Sorry," he says, sounding dazed. "Guess I did space out there for a second."

She almost wants to ask him about it, but a minute later, the campus security guard hauls them down to Simpson's office, where they promptly receive one month's detention and threat of automatic suspension if they go on the roof again.

She forgets to ask him.

 **v.**

Of course it would be windy _as fuck_ outside, and Tristan would refuse to mess up his hair before the big assembly.

"It's important that I look my best! You know how important this is, Zoe! And it's not like you have anything better else to do! Pretty please? I'll owe you huge!"

Well, Zoe huffs, Tristan Milligan certainly owes her much more than huge. Her hair is whipping her cheeks and stinging her eyes as she pops the trunk to Tristan's mom's car. He owes her gigantic. Colossal. Humongous. Enormous –

She's thinking up more synonyms for "huge" as she yanks the Rubbermaid container out of the trunk. There are so many lights and lanterns stuffed inside that she can't snap the lid closed, and as such, can't see over the top of the box. Cursing Tristan and his stupid Degrassi Alumni celebration, she wobbles across the parking lot – in her good heels, of course, which are probably all scuffed up now, god, she will _kill_ Tristan, that perfectionist _diva_ –trying not to fall face-first onto the concrete.

Halfway back to the gym entrance Zoe remembers she forgot to shut the trunk door. She stops for a brief moment, trying not to drop the heavy container, and wonders if she ought to go back. Then she figures, if Tristan wants anything else from his mom's car, he can get it himself. She isn't a pack mule.

That's when she notices the figure by the greenhouse.

His back is to her, but she doesn't recognize the tall, heavyset figure in dark clothes. Probably one of the alumni, she figures.

"Hey!" she calls. "You lost?"

The guy turns around. He's younger than she expected, early twenties. Probably only graduated a year or two ago.

"I'm here for the alumni assembly," he says, pointing unnecessarily at the gym.

Zoe shifts the box of decorations in her arms. "Well, you're about two hours too early."

The guy shrugs, and Zoe scowls. Whatever. She needs to get inside. It's freezing and the wind is destroying her hair.

"What happened to the greenhouse?" he asks.

She stops before she can tell herself to ignore him. "What?"

"The greenhouse," the guy asks, and jabs his thumb at the dilapidated building like she doesn't know what he's talking about. "It looks like shit. Did Simpson close it again?"

"It's been closed since last year."

The guy frowns. "Really? Surprised no one tried to break in like last time."

Briefly, she wonders why anyone would break into a greenhouse – whose lame idea for a prank was that?

"Hey, Mo! They're ready for you!"

The guy at the greenhouse turns at the sound of his name, and heads inside without another word to Zoe. She grits her teeth as she stomps after him, arms aching under the weight of the container.

"Oh no," she mumbles under her breath. "Don't mind me. I'm just hauling my body weight in Christmas lights here. No, of course I don't need any help, but thank you so much for asking."

By the time she sets the box down at Tristan's feet with a groan and shakes out her weary arms, the whole conversation is erased from her memory.

 **vi.**

The only reason Vijay signed up to work the incoming freshman orientation was because Miss Huang offered extra credit to anyone who volunteered, and he was failing trig. But it's not the worst way to spend a Saturday, especially if you get a little…creative.

"They say that backstage is haunted by a woman in white," he says, dropping his voice. "Noises have been heard in empty hallways as the last of the cleaning staff leaves the building at night. Students who sneak out during school dances to make out in empty classrooms sometimes report seeing a shadow that wasn't there."

Two of the kids look bored, but one little girl with glasses and an overbite raises her hand.

"Yes?"

"Are freshman allowed to register for class the same day as everyone else? Or do we sign up later?"

Vijay sighs. So much for anyone appreciating his flair. "You'll get all the information you need to register for your classes when you meet with your guidance counselors at the end of the day."

The girl nods. Her long hair is pulled into a shiny ponytail that bobs vigorously when she moves.

He motions for them to follow. "Degrassi really does have a thriving arts program. We put on a couple of productions a year, and all of them are student-directed. We do everything from traditional musicals like _Pippin_ and _Oklahoma_ to plays written by other Degrassi students."

He turns to lead them down the hall when he spots Tristan trying to get his attention.

"What's going on?" Vijay asks.

Tristan leans in closer and lowers his voice.

"You're going off-script again," he replies, irritated. "I told you, just stick to the basics from the outline. And stop with the stupid ghost stories. This isn't summer camp."

"Excuse me for trying to make this more exciting!" Vijay hisses.

Tristan rolls his eyes. "It's not supposed to be exciting. Just lead them through the tour and get them to the caf by noon. That's it."

"We're gonna bore them to death way before that!" Vijay replies. "People have actually died here. Like, in these hallways where we walk every day. We might as well use it! Everyone loves a creepy ghost story."

A look passes Tristan's face for a moment, one Vijay has never seen before. His eyes are flat as the horizon and just as endless. For a moment, it's as if he doesn't see Vijay or the crowd of bored kids in front of him.

It's there, and then it's gone.

"Just stick to the script," Tristan says in a voice Vijay has never heard before. "Or I'll find someone who will."

Vijay doesn't mention ghosts again.

 **vii.**

Between the school building and the fieldhouse, there is an old sugar maple that everybody sees and no one remembers. Unless it's autumn, who bothers to look at trees?

There's a small plaque under the tree, one that looks like marble but is really a cheaper knock-off variant. It's already starting to look as rugged and worn as the tree it rests under, even though it's been there for a fraction of the time. The plaque was only installed a couple of years ago, but there are so few still at the school who remember it as something new, something fresh. Something with a memory attached.

IN MEMORY OF

JAMES TIBERIUS YORKE

"J.T."

ALWAYS IN OUR HEARTS

This is the only such plaque on the grounds of Degrassi. The only boy commemorated by the earth he once walked on. The only boy whose name is allowed to etch itself into their past; into their memories.

If other lost boys of Degrassi are still in their hearts, they never speak of it. It's a silent agreement. No need to bring up all that…unpleasantness. That's all very much tidied up in the past, thank you very much.

 **oooOOOooo**

 _This is the story of a girl who lives with ghosts._

 _She learns to live with them day by day, and while it doesn't get any easier, she's realizing there are times when it's not as hard as others._

 _Some of them wear the face of a boy she tried to save. A boy who buries his hurt as deep as her own; whose fury is intense and all-consuming; whose eyes are clear as water, warring spirals of hope and despair push-pulling each other in a neverending struggle for balance._

 _Some of them wear the face of a boy who saved himself. A boy who wears the ragged mendings of his heart on his sleeve; whose mistakes may be more numerous than her own but no less grievous; who says he loves her and does love her and fails her, over and over and over again._

 _Some of them wear her own face. Those are the hardest to bear. The ones that look like her and talk like her and make the same choices she does; the ones who look the other way and ignore the flashing neon signs screaming in front of their eyes. The ones who are so casually, unwittingly cruel in their ignorance._

 _Only one of them wears the face of a boy she couldn't save. A boy she never tried to save. A boy she didn't know how to save, or even needed saving in the first place._

 _It's always the same dream –_

 _Riding on his back, one arm looped around his neck. Her legs wrap around his waist as his arms lock her into place, and together they spin around in a room full of flowers; they're spinning, spinning, laughing, dizzy from the motion and the overwhelming smell of the greenhouse blossoms and the sound of their own happiness._

 **oooOOOooo**

Back when the first seeds were planted, the greenhouse was going to be full of things that lived.

That was the point of the things that grew inside those walls. To live. To bloom. To flourish.

The morning they found his body, there was blood in the soil with the tulip bulbs. No one noticed it, but the first tulips to grow that spring had been nourished with the blood of a boy who had once put his hands in the dirt to bury their seeds and patted the earth down like a freshly-dug grave.

Because in order for something to live in the ground, it must first be buried. Dust to dust, and all that.

Nothing has been planted in the greenhouse since they closed it up. Weeds have long since overrun any bulbs that might have tried to sprout, and the only thing that still grows are the nameless wildflower that spring from the hard, neglected earth.

They come and go each season, and disappear almost as soon as they bloom. But for the time they exist, they survive in the tangle of undergrowth – forgotten, but not gone.


End file.
